New Study Proves EMF Affects Living Things, Discovers Electro-bonsai Effect
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04. 1.07
There has been much discussion at TreeHugger about the danger of Electromagnetic Fields (EMF) generated by cellphones, routers, power lines and microwave ovens. Some people think it is a serious issue; WIFI is banned at Lakehead University, and in Scandinavia there are cellphone-free beaches for people with electro-hypersensitivity. Clarins even makes a spray to protect your skin from it. Other people feel that it is not a problem.
Treehugger Labs wanted to determine this once and for all, and has spent the past year studying the issue. We wanted to pick a life form that would not move around a lot so that we could ensure that there were no other factors, and we are, of course, against animal testing, so we chose trees as our subject. We searched for trees that grew near power lines to see what the effect of the EMF was on the form of the tree.
We were surprised to find that maple trees growing up under power lines were profoundly influenced by the lines. They tended to develop a bifurcated "Y" formation as the limbs seemed to grow away from the lines themselves. We call this effect "electrobonsai" because it looks like it might have been shaped by humans.
In tree after tree, we saw the electrobonsai effect. The limbs clearly are trying to move away from the power lines. They appear healthy and have been around for a long time, but definitely try to keep a safe distance away from the EMF.
The wires are rated at 22 KV, 60 Cycle. Most of the city was rewired from 4Kv over the last few years so it appears that there is no relationship between the voltage and the electrobonsai effect.
As you can see from our control group, normal maple trees do not take the bifurcated Y shape but branch randomly.
The team concluded that there is no question, tree limbs are distorted by the power lines, and the only thing that could be emanating from the lines is the EMF. Sometimes we have seen that where they could not grow away from the lines, limbs are sheared off as if by a chainsaw, and then exude a brown protective coating to seal the wound. Who knew that plants could develop such sophisticated mechanisms for dealing with EMF.
Judging from the average distance of limbs from power lines,(2.4 metres or 8 feet) we have concluded that it is probably prudent to keep transformers, routers, cell phones and hair dryers eight feet from your head at all times.
how about the posibility that the power companies might be trimming the branches near the trees ?
HA HA! Nice April Fools! I wonder how many will fall for this?
lol, one of the funniest jokes I've come across today :) ( btw the pruned branches are quite obvious in some of the pics)
certianly this is an april fools joke.
Trees sway in the wind. And the wires are serviced methodically, ie tree trimming.
EMF is just too pervasive to be a problem. Its not like people are dying left and right from EMF. Infact according to the population stat's, the exact opposite is happening.
So i suppose your next 'study' will be to take 200 trees and let them grow for 20 years under wires. See how many bifurcate vs how many grow thru the wires. Tho again...how do you account for sway?
IMO the term 'study' is used pretty loosely here. Observation is not equate to a study.
I second Amias. I would love to know if this was taken into account. I do think that EMF interacts with all living things, but power companies routinely cut back trees annually to make sure they don't grow into the lines. Can you confirm that the test group trees did this naturally? The brown stumps are generally how the tree grows to protect cut off limbs.
Doh! Too early in the morning for me to think! And I've already played an April Fool's joke on my daughter this morning. I didn't think she'd cry though...
Aprils Fools indeed! ONTH, I can't wait for this post to be seriously referenced over the next weeks at other websites. An urban myth forming here?
that's so bizzare!...EMF had an electro-bonsai effect on the large maple in my back yard...what's super weird is that it seemed to "grow away from" the power lines immediately after an electric company boom truck with a tree shredder behind it left my back yard...(smell that?...that's sarcasm)...ha!...happy april fools to you, too, treehugger...:)
APRIL FOOOOOOL!!!!!!!
So I saw this as i took a break from studying, and yes, I was astonished by the stupidity of Treehugger...only then did I realized I just got punked by a bunch of hippies. Good Joke - you got me! :)
Although this is cleary a joke, there is such a thing as magnetically-induced tropism in germinating plants. If you germinate seeds on a high gauss magnet, they will not grow leaves towards light and roots toward soil. Instead, both ends will point towards the magnet.
Thank you treehuggers! :D
Very creative April Fools Joke indeed. When I first looked at the post I thought to myself "they can't possibly be serious". I then looked at today's date and realized the connection.
Well done
I came to Treehugger today specifically to find a joke. I'm glad to see you didn't let me down.
I, personally, am hypersensitive to EMF. I'm not sure it would harm trees or lab rats, but personally, I find Schubert Dip unlistenable. I think it's insensitive of you to make fun of people who genuinely experience revulsion to bad music from the early 1990s.
In other news, oxygen causes oxidation damage in human tissue.
EMFs may be harmful, but I'm willing to live with it, just as I'm willing to live with oxygen. Can't live with it, can't live without it. True, you could live without EMF, but I'd rather live with electronics than without. Incidentally, the life expectancy of the average human living in a developed society with electricity far exceeds the life expectancy of those tribal people in Papua New Guinea and the Amazon, so I think in the end, we still come out ahead.
An interesting piece of research but there may be another explanation. It is well established that all growing plants create a small electric field and are sensitive to gravity, although the mechanism for this is not well understood (see eg NASA http://weboflife.nasa.gov/currentResearch/currentResearchFlight/spaceSpirals.htm)
What is less well known is that plants may sense human emotions particularly when people confront a dilemma. This is why so many of us find solace in being with trees. In this case the current schism in American politics will leave many people feeling pulled to both left and right and your trees are simply responding in the only way they can. Perhaps your Labs can test this hypothesis, for example by looking at bushes growing next to solidly Democrat or Republican homes ?
Haha... "sheared off as if by a chainsaw". Its a slow growth Matrix sequence, bet if you time lapsed over the last 20 years it would look like NEO dodging bullets. LOL
Lloyd, you rock.
Yep! This is definitely an April Fool's joke. For sure, the maple trees form a y around the power lines. The reason is not EMF. The power companies could have topped the trees to keep the branches out of the lines, but no...they trimmed the trees so the lines would go through the trees.
Have you really been planning this one for a year?
Sorry, but I live in the country, where the trees (not maples) along our back alleyway are definitely growing their branches down away from the electric power lines. No pruning has been done and they have not bifurcated, but the limbs are definitely growing down and out, away from the power lines. And not all are the same kind of trees. There really is a response in nature to EMF.